Preparedness for health emergencies requires more than just pharmaceutical interventions. It demands that we better identify, respond to, and recover from outbreaks before they cause great harm. COVID-19 has starkly shown the need for better preparation. Data and analytics can help.
Our shared vulnerability to health emergencies means resilience is a global necessity – and our solutions need to reflect this scope and potential for scalability.
Actions arising from silo & solo thinking are unlikely to provide the answers we need. The Trinity Challenge understands that cooperation is of paramount importance, to ensure we don’t lose momentum once this pandemic has waned.
The Trinity Challenge is catalysing the collision between public health and data science, enabling Solution Teams to connect and contribute insights that will translate into global public goods.
Data can unlock breakthrough discoveries to inform how we should act in order to improve outcomes. With the right analytical minds and data sources, we can and must develop new ways of protecting ourselves against health emergencies.
This included the investigation of: i) genomic big data of pathogens; ii) ecological, behavioural and other factors causing the emergence of risks; or iii) interventions and incentives to reduce risk and spill-over.
Solutions in this category looked at: i) optimal preventive interventions; ii) ways in which to cut through the ‘infodemic’; or iii) enhanced methods for capturing and extracting data-driven learnings.
This category included analysis of: (i) interventions that would best protect population groups including the most endangered; ii) negative second-order consequences that could be avoided; or iii) the integration of the true costs of pandemic risk, with global financial and fiscal systems.
The Trinity Challenge created a detailed guide with a range of sample questions, to further explain the three categories for the 2021 Challenge.